SpongeBob's Latest: Search for SquarePants Review – An Adventurous Dose of Snicker-Inducing Silliness

Would the original fans who laughed through the first SpongeBob adventures have envisioned the franchise enduring for a 25 years, even after experiencing the most surreal of plotlines? This staying power is in part attributed to its wide-ranging appeal, amusing the sense of humor of grown-ups – perhaps even those now grown students – as well as the youngest viewers. While it can't claim anything quite as unexpected as a certain memorable David Hasselhoff appearance in the 2004 film, this latest movie thinks nothing of making a veteran voice actor speak as a pirate while handing out payments to stars like Barbra Streisand. It seems everything remains possible in the zany world of Bikini Bottom.

An Established Goofy Vibe

Starting with a holiday short starring Paramount's other weathered babysitters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest SpongeBob movie soon settles into a comfortably goofy groove. Its storyline serves as a PG-rated treatise on the pros and cons of maturity. This iteration of SpongeBob (again brought to life by Tom Kenny) now measures 36 clams high, a fact that excites him as it at last qualifies him to ride his dream rollercoaster. (An early, trippy laugh: our enthusiastic hero's imagined loop-the-loops.) Yet, like the best contemporary American animation, the real rollercoaster is the corkscrew plotting.

The Quest for Swashbuckling Credentials

SpongeBob's quest to secure the fabled swashbuckler certificate that will declare him a “big guy” leads him into conflict with the ghostly Flying Dutchman, voiced by the suddenly ubiquitous Mark Hamill. Although the Dutchman's ship introduces a larger scale, the film's aesthetic remains a charming mix of digital animation and hand-turned components, consistently showcasing pleasing, properly cartoonish visuals.

Whether its spitballing silliness will linger after the credits is debatable, but it's a solid SpongeBob movie.

Notable scenes feature SpongeBob squeezing himself into an AC unit and coming out inexplicably more rectangular than ever; a cameo from a pair of chattering joke-shop false teeth; and a punishment sure to delight the younger crowd: our hero being subjected to endless dishwashing.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, Search for SquarePants stands as a solid entry to the series – and arguably the most humorous Pirates of the Caribbean movie in years, encompassing a robust Davy Jones joke and a saltily suggestive saying for SpongeBob's friend Patrick: “The best guys are big guys.” It's clear: those original fans will likely be snickering all over again.

Release Dates: The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants debuts on December 19th in the US, December 20th in Ireland, and December 26th in Australia and the UK.